connecting Siddhartha's journey to Rey's from Star Wars

To me, Siddhartha offers a new perspective of life that is contrary to mine. I like to have set plans ahead of time, and I am someone who tries my best to follow these small steps to achieve what I have always wanted. Besides school work, because I seem to procrastinate and cram them last minute, I prefer to know what I am doing; for example, before I entered high school, I mapped out what courses I wanted to take, what activities I wanted to do, and what accomplishments I wanted to achieve. Similarly, I do have somewhat of a plan for my next upcoming few years- I do have a major decided that I want to study, possible internships that I want to take, and types of activities I want to do that would promote my academic growth. However, some of my plans fail, which easily gets me frustrated and nervous...

Siddhartha however tells me that it is okay when plans don't work in our favor... let me explain. In his journey to find enlightenment, he deliberately plans all the courses of action he must take to attain it. At first, he believes that it is through his time with the Samanas that he will reach enlightenment, so he decides to starve and remove all of his possessions. When he realizes that this plan of his did not work, he then decides the next set of plans, which is to live an independent -similarly to how Gotama had got enlightened. It is only when he starts letting go of these plans (or surrendering) that he reaches enlightenment.

The act of surrendering and then finding enlightenment is present in most heroic stories I feel like. Perhaps the reason for this is because when we surrender to our plans and what we want our future to be, we start allowing our surrounding environment to help us guide what we desire. For example, in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, it was when Rey found herself to be in despair that allowed her for all the forces around her to motivate her... and empower her to fight back against the Palpatine (ok it's been years since I watched the movie but I'm pretty sure this is how the story goes- or this is at least how I am going to interpret it :)

The "I am all the Jedi" scene... look at her fighting spirit :D

Although Star Wars is of course unrealistic and a little bit over-the-top, it is very closely related to Siddhartha's story, which is a bit more relatable because it is set in a realistic setting. And these stories tell us that sometimes letting go of what we have planned is okay- it is okay to be lost and be in despair. I mean just a few years back, the pandemic hit, and everything we had in our minds completely changed- we had to learn to adapt to the new environment, and look at all of us now... we all have survived and grown to a new version of ourselves-